s amiable,
straightforward, sanguine, and intensely _earnest_. When he laughed,
he let it out, as sailors have it, "with a will." When there was good
cause to be grave, no power on earth could make him smile. We have
called him boy, but in truth he was about that uncertain period of
life when a youth is said to be neither a man nor a boy. His face was
good-looking (_every_ earnest, candid face is) and masculine; his hair
was reddish-brown and his eye bright-blue. He was costumed in the
deerskin cap, leggings, moccasins, and leathern shirt common to the
western hunter. "You seem tickled wi' the Injuns, Dick Varley," said a
man who at that moment issued from the blockhouse.

"That's just what I am, Joe Blunt," replied the youth, turning with a
broad grin to his companion.

"Have a care, lad; do not laugh at 'em too much. They soon take
offence; an' them Redskins never forgive."

"But I'm only laughing at the baby," returned the youth, pointing to
the child, which, with a mixture of boldness and timidity, was playing
with a pup, wrinkling up its fat visage into a smile when its playmate
rushed away in sport, and opening wide its jet-black eyes in grave
anxiety as the pup returned at full gallop.

"It 'ud make an owl laugh," continued young Varley, "to see such a
queer pictur' o' itself."

He paused suddenly, and a dark frown covered his face as he saw the
Indian woman stoop quickly down, catch the pup by its hind-leg with
one hand, seize a heavy piece of wood with the other, and strike it
several violent blows on the throat. Without taking the trouble to
kill the poor animal outright, the savage then held its still writhing
body over the fire in order to singe off the hair before putting it
into the pot to be cooked.

The cruel act drew young Varley's attention more closely to the pup,
and it flashed across his mind that this could be no other than young
Crusoe, which neither he nor his companion had before seen, although
they had often heard others speak of and describe it.

Had the little creature been one of the unfortunate Indian curs, the
two hunters would probably have turned from the sickening sight with
disgust, feeling that, however much they might dislike such cruelty,
it would be of no use attempting to interfere with Indian usages. But
the instant the idea that it was Crusoe occurred to Varley he uttered
a yell of anger, and sprang towards the woman with a bound that caused
the three Indians to leap to